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External environmental
demand
4 Stress Approaches: Cognitive
Appraisal Approach
• Individuals differ in their appraisal of events &
people
• What is stressful for one person is not for another
• Perception and cognitive appraisal determines
what is stressful
Problem-focused coping Emotion-focused coping
emphasizes managing the emphasizes managing
stressor your response
4 Stress Approaches: Person-
Environment Fit Approach
• No undue stress
Good person-environment fit: a
person’s skills & abilities math a
clearly defined, consistent set of
role expectations.
Self-image
= the difference
The Stress Response
NonWork Demands
Family Demands Personal Demands
Marital expectations Religious activities
Child-rearing/day care Self-improvement
arrangements tasks
Parental care Traumatic events
Stress Benefits and Costs
Low
Low Optimum High
(distress) (eustress) (distress)
Stress level
Achilles’ heel
phenomenon - a
person breaks down at
his or her weakest point
Are There Gender-Related
Stressors?
Sexual harassment
Early age fatal health problems
Long term disabling health problems
Violence
Type A Behavior Patterns
Type A Behavior Patterns -
a complex of personality
and behavior
characteristics
– sense of time urgency
“hurry sickness”
– quest for numbers (of
achievements)
– status insecurity
– aggression & hostility
expressed in response to
frustration & conflict
Personality Hardiness
Personality hardiness - a personality resistant to
distress & characterized by
– challenge (versus threat)
– commitment (versus alienation)
– control (versus powerlessness)
Transformational coping - a way of managing
stressful events by changing them into
subjectively less stressful events (versus
regressive coping - passive avoidance of events
by decreasing interaction with the environment)
Self-Reliance
Self-reliance - a healthy, secure, interdependent
pattern of behavior related to how people form and
maintain supportive attachments with others
Counterdependence - an unhealthy, insecure
pattern of behavior that leads to separation in
relationships with other people
Overdependence - an unhealthy, insecure pattern of
behavior that leads to preoccupied attempts to
achieve security through relationships.
Preventative Stress Management
Preventative stress management - an organi-
zational philosophy that holds that people &
organizations should take joint responsibility for
promoting health and preventing distress & strain
Primary prevention - designed to reduce, modify, or
eliminate the demand or stressor causing stress
– Secondary prevention - designed to alter or modify the
individual’s or the organizations’ response to a demand
or stressor
– Tertiary prevention - designed to heal individual or
organizational symptoms of distress & strain
Preventative Stress Maintenance
Organizational stressors Primary
• Task demands prevention
• Role demands Health risk factors
• Physical demands
stressor
• Interpersonal demands directed
Secondary
Stress responses
prevention Asymptomatic
• Individual
response disease
• Organizational
directed
Distress
Individual problems Tertiary
• Behavioral •Medical prevention Symptomatic
• Psychological symptom disease
Organizational costs
directed
• Direct • Indirect costs
Source: J. D. Quick, R. S. Horn, and J. C. Quick, “Health Consequences of Stress,” Journal of Organizational Behavior Management 8, no. 2, figure 1 (Fall 1986): 21. Reprinted with permission of Haworth Press,
Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904. Copyright 1986.
Organizational Stress Prevention
• Focuses on people’s work demands
• Focuses on ways to reduce distress at work
• Most organizational prevention is primary
– job redesign
– goal setting
– role negotiation
– social support systems
Job Strain Model
Work load Unresolved
Low High
strain
Low
Active
job
B. Gardell, “Efficiency and Health Hazards in Mechanized Work,” in J. C. Quick, R.S. Bhagat, J. E. Dalton, and J. D. Quick, (eds.), Work
Stress: Health Care Systems in the Workplace. Copyright © 1987. Reproduced with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.,
Westport, CT.
Social Support at Work & Home
Organizational Family
Supervisor Spouse
Colleagues Children
Subordinates Parents
Clients In-laws
Individual Church
Minister/Rabbi
Professional Friends
Physicians Support groups
Psychologists
Counselors
Clubs
Lawyers
Business associations
From J. C. Quick J. D. Quick, D. L. Nelson and J. J. Hurrell,
Jr. in Preventive Stress Management in Organizations, 1997,
Social clubs
p. 198. Copyright© 1997 by The American Psychological
Association. Reprinted with permission. Athletic groups
Individual Preventive
Stress Management
Primary Prevention
Learned optimism: Alters the person’s internal self-talk & reduces
depression
Time management: Improves planning & priortizes activities
Leisure time activities: Balance work & nonwork activities
Secondary Prevention
Physical exercise: Improves cardiovascular function & muscular
flexibility
Relaxation training: Lowers all indicators of the stress response
Diet: Lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease &
improves overall physical health
Tertiary Prevention
Opening up: Releases internalized traumas & emotional
tensions
Professional help: Provides information, emotional support, &
therapeutic guidance